Acts 15 gives us a fascinating insight into how the apostolic church navigated the transitional period between the inauguration of the New Covenant and the end of the Old Covenant, particularly with regard to the requirements for covenantal membership. Specifically, was the requirement of circumcision to continue into this new age? If not, how would New Covenant membership be regulated?

The debate about circumcision first sprung up in Antioch, which should not come as a surprise. When persecution ramped up after the stoning of Stephen in Jerusalem, followers of Christ began to disperse throughout the region, and with them they took the gospel. But even after Peter’s revelation about God’s plan for Gentile inclusion (Acts 10–11:18), many were still speaking the word of Christ only to the Jews (Acts 11:19). But some men from Cyprus and Cyrene came to Antioch and preached the gospel to the Hellenists in Antioch (Acts 11:20). Thus Antioch is one of the first places where Jews and Gentiles were in fellowship together in the same church. Perhaps this is why it was in Antioch where followers of Christ were first called “Christians” (Acts 11:26). Antioch also happens to be the birthplace of Paul’s commission to the Gentiles (13:2), whom God had begun to include in the kingdom when he “opened a door of faith” to them (14:27).

But the circumcision debate kicked off when “some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’ (15:1).” This contention was directed at the new Gentile converts, who obviously would not have been circumcised from birth like their Jewish brothers. But Paul and Barnabas, who were in Antioch, strongly disagreed with these men from Judea, and between them there arose “no small dissension and debate” (15:2) that was not easily resolved.

Therefore, the believers in Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas and some others with them up to Jerusalem in order to settle the issue. Why were they sent to Jerusalem? Because Jerusalem was where the “apostles and the elders” were (Acts 15:2). The “apostles” were the twelve commissioned by Christ (minus Judas, plus Matthias, Acts 1:12–26) who walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry and saw him after he was raised from the dead. These apostles were God’s chosen instruments to guide the church in receiving new revelation — which would come to inform and form the books of the New Testament — that Jesus foretold as recorded in John 16:12–15. The elders would have most likely been shepherds and overseers of the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem and the World (it’s a joke!), which was planted in Jerusalem by Jesus and the apostles.

After Paul and Barnabas gave their missionary report to the gathered assembly about God’s work among the Gentiles, Acts 15:5 tells us that some who belonged to the party of the Pharisees (how did they get in there?) echoed the men from Judea saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” This caused more debate, and we are told that this council of apostles and elders, along with Paul and Barnabas, considered the matter thoroughly.

After careful and thorough consideration, Peter, who was the apostolic spokesman during Christ’s earthly ministry, stood up and said,

“Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:7b–11)

According to this statement by Peter, which was given with the full force of an apostolic declaration, circumcision is not required to be saved, as the men from Judea had argued, nor would Gentiles be required as a matter of obedience to observe the rite or follow the whole law of Moses, which the party of the Pharisees had argued. But why? What reasons does Peter give?

Peter’s answer gives us insight into how Peter and the Jerusalem Council thought about what had changed now that Christ has come. The Gentiles would not be required to be circumcised because (1) God has given Gentiles the Holy Spirit; (2) God no longer makes a distinction between Jew and Gentile; and (3) God has cleansed the hearts of Gentiles by faith.

This statement, firstly, reveals what the rite of circumcision meant to Peter and the Jews. Circumcision was meant to distinguish covenant members from non-covenant members, i.e. Jews from Gentiles; and less obviously, circumcision was part of the covenantal provisions that make one clean.

So what, if anything, has replaced this rite? What is the covenantal corollary that distinguishes and cleanses in the New Covenant? The answer given in Peter’s statement: the gift of the Holy Spirit, who cleanses (circumcises) the heart by faith (cf. Rom. 2:25–29; Deut 30:6).

I think this is very instructive for how we should understand the relationship between the covenants. My paedobaptist friends make the case for infant baptism based in part on the close relationship between the Old and New Covenants. The simplified version of this argument is that members of the Old Covenant and their (male) children were given the sign of the covenant, circumcision, from birth in order to signify their covenant membership; therefore, members of the New Covenant and their children are to be given the sign of the covenant, which they understand to be baptism, from birth in order to signify their covenant membership.

But here is where the Jerusalem Council’s reasoning throws a wrench in this one-for-one correlation. If Peter had thought baptism replaced the sign of circumcision in the New Covenant, wouldn’t it have been far easier for Peter to stand up and say, “Brothers, God does not require Gentiles to be circumcised, for they have already received the sign of the New Covenant; they have been baptized, which replaces the sign of circumcision under the New Covenant.”

But that is not what Peter says. Instead, he explicitly says that circumcision is no longer required for membership in the New Covenant — neither for entrance into or continuance in — because membership is by faith through the Holy Spirit, who cleanses, circumcises, the heart.

Is there a corollary to the Old Covenant rite of circumcision in the New Covenant? Yes! And the New Testament (and the Old Testament) couldn’t make this connection more explicit with a more obvious metaphor: circumcision of the heart (cf. Lev. 26:41; Deut 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4;4; 31:33; 32:39–40; Ezek. 11:19; 36:26–27; Acts 7:51; Rom. 2:25–29; Col. 2:11). Under the Old Covenant, those born into a covenant family received the sign of circumcision, which marked their entrance into the covenant. But under the New Covenant, those born again into the family of God receive a circumcised heart by the Holy Spirit, which marks their entrance into the covenant.

What, then, is the purpose of baptism? This invisible, internal reality is made visible by the sign of baptism. In this way, the connection between Old Covenant circumcision and New Covenant baptism is real, but secondary, and mediated through the more obvious spiritual metaphor for regeneration: circumcision of the heart.

God continues to bear witness to our covenant inclusion just as he said he would through mouth of Peter: by giving us the Holy Spirit, who cleanses our hearts by faith. And we bear witness publicly to this inward change wrought by the Spirit when we undergo the waters of baptism, just as our Lord on the day he received the Spirit (Mt. 3:13–17).